Animals go extinct for all sorts of reasons. In fact, most animal species that have ever existed have already gone extinct, many of them long before humans came on the scene.
That being said, human activity such as hunting, the development of habitats, pollution, and more have contributed greatly to many species becoming endangered and going extinct. Birds generally do better at adapting to human-caused changes since they are able to fly to new areas where they can continue to survive.
Most examples of birds going extinct due to humans have occurred on islands where a particular species had nowhere they could go to escape the changes that people brought with them, but that is not always the case.
One of the latest bird species that is likely extinct is the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris). This migratory shorebird once flew throughout the mainland of many regions, but they have not been seen since at least 2001.
A new paper published in the International Journal of Avian Science is now saying that this bird is most likely extinct.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) sent a statement to IFLScience, in which they said:
“This marks the first known extinction of a bird species from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. Extensive efforts have been made for decades to find evidence of the Slender-billed Curlew across its breeding and non-breeding ranges, but all have proven unsuccessful.”
In 2002 an unconfirmed sighting of the bird was made, but nothing since. The last confirmed sighting of this species took place in Morocco in 1995. It often takes a long time to classify animals as extinct, especially when they once existed in such large areas, it can be difficult to track them down.
The report was submitted to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which is responsible for tracking critically endangered animal species and, when necessary, declaring them extinct.
If this bird is declared extinct, it will result in efforts and funding that is currently going toward finding and hopefully saving the Slender-billed Curlew toward protecting other animals.
Unfortunately, this likely will not be the last bird species to be declared extinct. As Alex Berryman of Birdlife International said in the statement:
“90 percent of bird extinctions [have been of] island species. However, while the wave of island extinctions may be slowing, the rate of continental extinctions is increasing.”
Hopefully, humans can change our activity so that we no longer contribute to the destination of so many species.
It is sad how many animals are extinct because of humans.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?
